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User blog:Carol of the bells/Days of Ruin (Revised): Chapter 4, part 1
“We need to be careful along this road,” Zen said, her finger tracing the north-western road on the map’s surface. “The vendor told me that these two towns were on the brink of conflict. I don’t want to get caught up in anything.” “That sounds like a good idea,” Aem agreed. “If need be, we can take the long way around this mountain, and…” He paused. “By the way, Lady Zen, where are we headed to?” She paused. It was a question she had considered ever since her encounter with Karl. What did she want to do now? Where would she go? She rolled up the map. “At the moment, I’m not very sure. Maybe…maybe I should go to the Summoner’s Hall.” “Whatever you decide.” “Well, I have decided.” Aem was unsummoned as Zen started down the road. The forestry was a pleasant change from the harsh wintry wasteland she had grown up in, and she found herself enjoying the walk. Then she noticed how quiet it was. There wasn’t just a lack of speaking, there was a lack of sound. She checked her surroundings cautiously. Not a monster or beast in sight. She looked up. No birds. Not even an insect could be heard. Then she noticed the smell. It was subtle, yet so unlike anything she had ever encountered that she instinctively covered her nose. “What is that?” For the first time, she noticed that there was smoke on the horizon. She picked up her pace and quickly abandoned the path to break through the line of trees. A sight of horror met her eyes. In the distance, a village lay as the remaining embers of a great fire. The radius of destruction was so great that the charred grass began only a few steps away. Zen approached, almost drawn in by the carnage. She had never seen such devastation. The closer she got, the more she realized that the smell was that of the burnt landscape and the remains of decaying flesh. The stony foundations of buildings had been reduced to cornerstones and ash. Unrecognizable forms of flesh littered the ground. Humans. Burning flesh had been the smell that overwhelmed her senses so quickly. “What…what happened here?” “Zen,” Selena spoke, “You should leave now. If the attackers come back, then—“ “Attackers?” She looked around. “What, you don’t mean to say that this is the village that was locked in that feud?” “Indeed.” She shook her head. “It can’t be. Look at this…is it even possible for humans to do such damage?” She wandered forward. A crack sounded behind her and she whirled around. “Not men,” An old man wheezed, his back stooped over and his skin burned. He hid behind a stone pillar, his only visible eye wide. He spoke, but seemed to look through Zen. “Men did not do this…” She took a cautious step backwards. “Then who did?” He mimicked her actions and took a step out from behind his hiding place. “The terror from the sky, she who judges us—the gods! The gods did this to us!” “The gods?” “This is our punishment,” He swept his charred arm out towards the burned village. “For wasting our gift of life! But she won’t stop here…the burning was only the beginning. She is returning to finish the judgement, till there is no trace of our existence. And soon the men further up, they who we bickered with—they too will be punished!” Zen’s unease continued to well up in her. All at once, a massive suppressive presence fell over them. The ground trembled and Zen fell to her knees, her breath stolen away. The old man fell over on his back, shrieking and writhing. “It has come,” He screamed, “The final judgment is here! We shall be wiped off the face of the earth!” She wasn’t going to wait and find out what he meant. Gasping and consciousness quickly fading, she forced herself to her feet and ran, hoping that it was the direction closest to the forest. A loud crack resounded across the earth, and she dared a glance behind her. The ground had split at the center of the village, right near the old man. A beam of white light shot from the crack, a deafening noise announcing its presence. It expanded outward, and the writhing old man soon evaporated before her eyes. Fear overtook all other senses and she ran forward, but she could not outrun the light. It was almost upon her. “Zen!” She didn’t know who was trying to speak, but she didn’t care. In a desperate act to live, she crossed her arms over her face, encasing her body in crystal just as the light overcame everything around her. Amidst the shining white light, her consciousness faded to black. *** Sometimes, Zen had found herself wondering would death felt like. No one in her family ever talked about it, so she was left to her imagination. She often pictured it like an empty darkness, a place to spend alone for eternity. She currently felt that she hadn’t been wrong. She was in a darkness—she felt suffocated by it. She wasn’t floating, she wasn’t on a surface, she was just suspended in a vast emptiness. She had been wrong about one thing. She wasn’t alone. It was no one she could see. Just a suppressive presence that was all around, inescapable. It had the voice of a woman. It spoke to her. Told her things. Asked her questions. Some of the questions she didn’t know how to answer, so it answered them for her. She felt exposed, like it was pealing through her mind. Why are you here? What do you regret? Are you able to kill? You are, aren’t you? She tried to hide, but there was nothing. She tried not to answer the questions, but the presence just pried into her mind and took the answers. She began to weep, which soon grew into sobbing. Why are you crying? You are afraid. You are always afraid. What are you afraid of? Zen finally found the breath to speak. “Who…are you?” She gasped. I am the one who creates. Life. Breath. Despair. Death. I am your destruction. *** Zen gasped as consciousness was suddenly returned to her, like rising from ocean depths suddenly, rudely breaching the water surface. Her eye stared at a vast blue sky riddled with clouds. A breeze drifted across her face. Between her fingers she felt dirt. She heard birds. She was breathing. She was alive. She sat up, quickly, eyes wide and blinking to make sure she had truly awoken. The sky, the breeze, the dirt, the birds. It was still there. It was still real. Her fear slowly retreated to the corners of her mind. It was over. The nightmare was over. She turned where she sat, and realized she was surrounded by broken shards of crystal. She was sitting in a large circle of dirt. Not dirt. Dust. The village that she had stood in moments ago had been reduced to dust. “Are you okay, Zen?!” Selena frantically asked. “Please say something!” “I’m fine,” She answered absently, rising to her feet, still fixated on what once was a civilization. “Whatever happened,” Aem spoke, “''we have stayed here to long. Zen, we must leave. Now.”'' She swallowed, only partially aware that she was being spoken to. Her mind still lingered in that dark void, with that overwhelming presence. She still felt it coursing through her. In that moment, standing in the dust of the village, she knew she had been wrong. The nightmare was not over. Something still lingered beneath the surface, like a malignant cancer, waiting to spread. She lost track of time as she wandered aimlessly down the path, a heavy fog over her mind, the image of the old man vivid before her eyes. He hadn’t just died. He had been erased. By what, she didn’t know, and it made her shudder. To see life vanish so easily, to know the same almost happened to her; it was nauseating. Had she really been so close to death? Her thoughts were joined by the realization that she too once treated life so callously. She had been ignorant. Apparently, there was much she still didn’t know. Living in seclusion most of her life, her knowledge of ‘gods’ was limited to what she had been told, and that wasn’t much. Mulling over these things, Zen felt a sinking realization of how little she knew and how small she was in the vast world around her. She was far away from home, and many strange things lie in wait. She had only begun to realize how hostile the world truly was. Category:Blog posts